Tag Archives: 21st century skills

Bringing out the best in children

As I was walking down Church Hill today the potential of our nation torpedoed toward and then past me in the form of a vigorous 8 year-old girl. Her feet pounded the pavement, her wide golden eyes locked with mine, and then she was gone. “Who knows?” I thought. “Maybe that girl will do humankind […]

Will a lack of funding doom proficiency-based education?

It makes me angry that programming in the arts, languages, social studies, physical education, technical education, and even recess has been reduced for a decade in American schools in the name of increasing academic achievement and we have little to nothing to show for it. Our students are basically doing no better academically than they were doing […]

Should our taxes pay for arts education in school?

This spring I have had the pleasure of leading a group of children as they worked together twice weekly over a period of a month on a class mural about intertidal zones in seacoast Maine.  As I guided the children last session I was reminded that arts education teaches the 21st century skills that all students need. […]

Dear Teacher: Where are the block buildings and the dress-up clothes? I’m only five years old!

Tony Wagner, noted pundit on school transformation, writes: “Research shows that human beings are born with an innate desire to explore, experiment, and imagine new possibilities – in a word, to innovate.  How do children learn such skills? In a word – play.” Why then when I enter kindergarten classrooms these days are there no building […]

“School is boring!” Does it have to be?

I absolutely love thinking and learning about schools and students and I assume a lot of other teachers do too. Yet in my experience as a teacher I rarely have an opportunity to sit down in the context of my job with other equally charged teachers and talk and plan new programs and new curriculum and new approaches to […]

School board candidates should show serious engagement with current topics in education

School boards make decisions that greatly influence the education students receive, yet some school board members know very little about curriculum, brain research, child development, or what is going on state-wide, nationally, or internationally in schools. In Maine we value local control of our schools and we are reluctant to cede decision-making authority to bureaucrats. […]

21st Century Skills at Risk

What should schools be teaching? What is fundamental to the skill set of an educated person? According to the Framework for 21st Century Learning, created by The Partnership for 21st Century Skills with the encouragement of the U.S. Department of Education, among skills at the center of the curriculum should be : Critical thinking. Communication. Collaboration. Creativity. I think […]